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Topic: Let the dough set out before putting into the fridge??? (Read 2095 times)

I have been reading the many dough recipes in "American Pie", by Peter Reinhart, and I am noticing a step that i have not been doing. He recommends that after you coat the dough ball with olive oil and then bag it in a freezer bag, to let it sit out for 15 to 30 minutes before putting it into the fridge. (Depending on the recipe).

This is a step that I have often skipped since I was unaware of it. Also, I have noticed dough setting out on the counter top in several pizzerias before they divide it into dough balls. Not sure if this is because they can't get to it at the moment or if it is part of their recipe?

My question is: Should you let your dough set at room temperature before putting it into the fridge for the cold rise? Also, how long do you let it set out, if any, and how important is this step in the dough making process?? Thank you.

Tom;Letting the dough sit out at room temperature is not recommended when the dough is to be frozen as it allows the yeast cells to swell in size, thus rendering them more prone to ice crystal damage during the freezing process, this in turn allows glutathione (first cousin to L-cysteine, think PZ-44) to leak out into the dough creating an undesirably soft and sticky dough condition when the dough is finally slacked out/thawed for use. As to allowing the dough to set out prior to going into the cooler, this allows the yeast to begin leavening the dough, thus effectively making it less dense and more difficult to cool in a repeatable, and efficient manner. A lot of stores that still follow this practice are doing it because they have always done it that way, or that was the way they were taught to do it by a previous owner. We have found that there is significantly improved cooling efficiency when the dough is divided/scaled, balled, boxed or bagged, and taken to the cooler all within 20-minutes of coming off of the mixer. This also results in improved consistency of dough performance when the dough is to be held for several days in the cooler and we are striving to get the same pizza on day 1 as we will get on day 3. When making pizzas at home these issues still remain, but the ramifications are not so great as we can easily accommodate changes in the way the dough handles (try explaining/showing that to the average highschool or college student working in a pizzeria) and if the pizza needs an adjustment in baking time, so be it, but with the use of an air impingement or other conveyor oven those changes cannot really be made from pizza to pizza unless a deck oven is being used. For the most part, pizzerias work on the old adage of GIGO when it comes to dough.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

When I made pizza last weekend, I did not make it Friday as I normally would for Sunday use. I was too tired Friday, so I made it Saturday. Since I was only going to have one day in the fridge, I decided to up the yeast percentage some and I did a two hour warm rise in the mixing bowl before balling and putting into the fridge. This seemed to help the dough get a kick start on rising and has risen to where I wanted it on Sunday. Not sure if this is how it is typically done when time is short or not, but it seemed to work fine.

Sly;You could have also just increased the dough temperature by 10F and accomplished the same thing without changing your dough formula/recipe. This is how we normally make no-time/emergency doughs.The down side to increasing the yeast level is that should you want to hold the dough for additional time in the fridge, you would stand a good chance of the dough "blowing" or becoming over fermented, plus depending upon how much yeast we're talking about, you can also change the flavor of the finished crust with an excessively high yeast level.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

I sometimes wonder what is more important in a home setting--temperature or yeast quantity. I say this because temperature in a home setting can be a crapshoot because the refrigerator temperature where the dough is to ferment can vary quite widely depending on how often the door is opened or closed during the period of fermentation, what is removed and what is added to the refrigerator compartment during the period of fermentation, and where in the refrigerator compartment the dough storage containers are placed. In my own case, I periodically check the temperature of my refrigerator just out of curiosity and it can vary by several degrees. Also, it seems to me that achieving a particular finished dough temperature is trickier than changing the amount of yeast. Do you have any thoughts or advice on this?

I probably had upped the yeast from .0375 to about .045. I will up the water temp next time to compare. Is anything gained from the room temp bulk rise - it seemed to me that it kickstarted the fermentation.

Sly & Peter;Within the range that your yeast was used at there would not be an issue, but if you were at 1% IDY or more and doubled it, you might have brought a different crust flavor to the table. The flavor wouldn't be bad, but just different from the "norm", some might describe the flavor with high yeast levels as "yeasty", at least for me, this is not the normal flavor that I associate with a great tasting pizza crust. Peter brings up a good point with the temperature of the home fridge, typically being warmer than desired, not through a fault of the fridge, but rather because we're always opening and closing the door during the normal course of the day. Then too, our home fridge has a big temperature difference between the top and bottom, so much so that when we are gone for a few days the things in the lower vegetable drawers end up getting frosted. I can't begin to count the amount of lettuce we have had to toss-out because it got frozen while we were gone. I guess opening and closing the door frequently may not be all that bad afterall. Because of this, I really think it is better to make an adjustment in the water temperature to achieve a higher finished dough temperature rather than to increase the yeast level. It is actually pretty easy to get a dough that is about 10F warmer than normal by just using warmer water when making the dough. How much warmer? My experience with making pizzas at home has shown that an increase of 10 to 15F in the temperature of the water added to the dough should do the trick. Don't have a thermometer? You can get an inexpensive one from Walmart in the automotive department for $7.00. They read up to 125F and are used to check the temperature of a car's airconditioning. I've also used a cheap oral thermometer that I had left over from when the kids were young. The exact finished dough temperature is a goal but not a prerequisite in making an emergency dough, just getting it warmer than normal will almost always do the trick, but in order to have repeatability, you never know when company will unexpectedly drop in, nothing beats working with actual temperatures whenever you can.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Thanks for all the reply comments on this subject. Fortunately, I have two refrigerators in my house. The main one is in my kitchen, of course, and the other is in my garage. I keep my dough that is cold rising, in the outside fridge because it gets open the least.

In reviewing "American Pie", in the dough recipes section, I still see that Peter Reinhart says to let the dough set out for 15 or sometimes 30 minutes (depending on the recipe) before bagging it for the cold rise. Perhaps i need to read it again, but i am wondering why this is important enough for him to include in the dough recipe?? I am not looking to start an argument, I am just trying to understand his recipe better. Thanks.

Tom;Letting the dough sit out and ferment for a period of time is a part of his dough management procedure. It gives him the end product he is looking for when used with his formula and dough making process. Large scale, pizzeria operations are not especially fond of the process as it can be difficult to ensure that the recommended times will always be adhered to resulting in potential dough handling issues, or product quality issues, especially after several days in the cooler. With that said, we do see this done at a lot of the independent pizzerias where they have better control over how the dough is managed in their shop. It might have been in PMQ that I wrote an article on dough management techniques where I discussed the pro's and con's of different dough management procedures as they pertain to the pizzeria.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor